Nvidia diversifying

Nvidia Corp., expanding beyond its X-Box success, is partnering with ELSA AG of Germany to make workstation cards and graphics boards. A company spokesman has hinted that Nvidia may be working on highly integrated boards and has acknowledged that more functions will be integrated into its future graphics chips. Nvidia reportedly holds about 25% of the graphics-chip set market, second behind ATI Technologies Inc.

Nvidia's NV25 graphics-processor unit is said to be the first to integrate logic-control functions onto a graphics processor. The X-Box will use Intel's Pentium III and the Nvidia chip will serve as memory controller for graphics and the central processor. One analyst expects Nvidia to produce a chip with audio functions and speculates that such an integrated audio-controller chip might also show up in the X-Box game console.